Thank God I graduated out of the Rochester school system in 1965. I remember Ben Franklin High School. There was no Junior in it at that time. We used to kick their butts on the football field and basketball court each year. Amazing, that in less than 10 years, they managed to take a perfectly good curriculum and turn it to crap. About the only time I can remember a discussion in class being off topic was the day President Kennedy was assassinated.
Agreed. I graduated from H.S. in '64. It was all business here in Pittsburgh when I went to school. My father took his own life on a weekend when I was 13 and in ninth grade. My brother, sister, and I went to school the following Monday. There were no counselors or any of that silliness. Things were dealt with, and dealt with well in the family.
Now when there is some little disturbance in a school or some other small thing........ the kids are all getting psychological help. Lord!
I was just getting out of a very good college when JFK was "elected." As I look back on that era, it seems that the stolen election of 1960, the overlooking of which also began a long decline of the GOP, was a cultural watershed for all of us.
On a visit about 5 years later, I found my college undersiege by dirty, dope-smoking pseudo-radicals, with many fewer required courses, and about 40% fewer students in engineering and the sciences. BY 1970, the siege had turned into a complete rout.
The "Camelot" Mania marked a turning point away from reason and responsibility, starting us down a path at the end of which half the American electorate could vote for a John Kerry, and 70% of a constituency can continue to keep a Ted Kennedy in office.
The cynically manufactured icons of this era proved so successful, that the Democrats are reviving them now, complete with an änti-war" movement and attacks upon members of the Armed Forces and their relatives.